haven't updated in awhile, but don't really have much to share. i've been taking care of myself the best i can these past two months. took a lot of time off work (for the first time really ever), started exercising more, reading more. doing more of the things i love with the people i love. as i've come back to working, i just don't feel like i have the same mindset as i did these past 10 years. maybe it will come back to me, but right now, i don't feel as "driven" to push myself to work 18 hour days or to sacrifice my own well-being for a deadline. i want to do well & want to create my best work, but i also want to live my life. is it possible to do both?

i can't believe it's been two months since peechee died. it still feels like it just happened. after he died, so did a dear family friend and another friend of ours as well - both horribly to cancer. it's made it hard to focus on anything but loved ones and living each day to the fullest, often times with some tears as we remember our friends and feel fearful of losing anyone else.

focusing on my health and well-being has been helpful and makes me realize how rarely i tend to. i read a book called "making a change for good" by Cheri Huber and in it was the image below. it reminded me of how often i use the excuse "i don't have time to" when it comes to anything fun, basically. see a movie? no, i don't have time to. read a book? nope. no time. go for a walk? nope.

so, since reading that, i try to make time. this is the image from the book:

some mornings, lying in bed i'll think to myself "today is the day i'll pull myself back together. i'll get ____, ____, and ____ done. i'll go to ____. i'll be productive." but by the time i get myself upright, i lose all motivation, like a deflating balloon fluttering away.

i've been thinking for a long time about what to write about peechee and i think i need to write it all out. the hard stuff, the ugly stuff, the stuff that i think about before i go to sleep at night. his final days. some days it seems unimaginable that he's not actually here. he's been such a constant in my life these last 14 years. so many days i think i hear him, or expect him to be looking back at me. i still open the front door gently, thinking he'll be right behind it as he always was, ready to greet us. in the moments that i'm overcome with grief, i long to hold him and pet him, his warm weight in my lap was always a source of comfort during times of stress and i feel like i don't have a comfort like that anymore now that he's gone.

though michael and i knew death was an inevitable, we hoped it wouldn't happen so soon. last month, the cardiologist adjusted her prognosis to 1-2 years which felt like winning the lottery. but peechee did not make it beyond 2 months from his initial heart failure. from the beginning, we knew he could die at any time, that there could be a secondary event like a stroke, and though we're not sure what his exact cause of death was, we realize no matter when it came, we'd always be unprepared for it because it meant we'd be losing a member of our family, the only other member of our shared family, and our closest companion.

december 26th i guess that was the beginning of the real end. we had been taking him to the vet & cardiologist 2x a week for his heart, getting x-rays and ultrasounds and blood work every week, trying to keep an eye on the symptoms medically before he started showing them to us in other ways. peechee's energy level had restored, his weight was up, he seemed to be doing great those weeks in december. michael had just flown in from rhode island back from the holidays that night, we were sitting around at home with friends visiting, and then peechee started throwing up and then there was blood. we got on the phone with the emergency hospital, they told us to bring him in the morning, we did, and that's when the whole picture began to shift.

that week, he started having asthma attacks every day, several times a day. his medications were changed again. supplements were added, asthma medication was added. he was to have something like 8 different medications, four doses in a day. i felt like a drug dealer. our dining room table was my lab where i cut up pills into smaller parts and reassembled them into mixed pills easier for him to swallow. i felt like my math and science skills from high school were being put to a test as i worked with care to keep track of everything he needed. i had charts.

he was sent to a third doctor, an internist, a specialist - in addition to the cardiologist and vet we already had him going to. everyone assured us of the same things: he is not in pain. he is not suffering. this treatment will help him for a period of time. we determined that the blood episode may have been related to his blood thinning stroke medication. chest x-rays revealed one week that his heart was functioning well, and there was no fluid in his chest leftover from the initial heart failure, but that his kidneys were still on the verge of failure. then the next visit, the opposite was true - the kidneys were showing normal bloodwork but the fluid was back in his chest again. then the next visit, the kidney values were off the charts in failure and there was so much fluid in his chest that he needed to have his lungs tapped again, the first time since the original heart failure episode meaning he had gone into heart failure again. that was around the end of the year. the vets told us to think about installing a feeding tube for him.

after he had his lungs tapped, he did well. we had a few good days with him. on new years eve, michael convinced me to go out briefly to a friend's party. i hadn't wanted to leave peechee at home alone, even though he had improved. i just was so scared something was going to happen and we wouldn't be home. nothing happened, but i was wracked with guilt.

he had to have his chest tapped again a few days later. they had to sedate him for it. when he came home, we took him out of his carrier thinking he'd trot over to his food as he usually did when we came home from the vet, and instead, he collapsed. he had lost use of his back legs. we immediately got on the phone with the hospital, and were told this may be the effects of sedation. last time it took 48 hours for his sedation to wear off, so for 48 hours, we carried him around the house. he stopped using the litter box. this was on wednesday, january 4th. i asked the vet if there was any hope for him, and she said she had seen cats bounce back well and that he had a 50/50 chance. she said we were running out of options but to give it until monday before we started making any decisions about his future (ie, feeding tube or euthanasia).

"running out of options" is a painful phrase to hear.

that week, he couldn't jump up on the bed, he couldn't walk to his food or his litter box, so michael and i set up our sleeping bag on the floor and made a little compound. we surrounded him with toys and favorite blankets. we'd blow on his water to create little ripples so he would be encouraged to drink it (it worked every time). i'd kiss his head to encourage him to eat, and that worked too. he ate a lot and conserved his energy, and we just took the best care we could of him to nurse him to health. we played with him and pet him and doted on him.

i didn't leave his side with one exception: one day i had to pack orders for a few hours, during which i set up a livestream cam so i could watch him from the other room. my sister and a friend of mine also kept an eye on the cam, everyone knowing to call me right away if something unusual happened. (it didn't) michael and i used to always dream/joke of having a camera to watch peechee while we were out, like angela from The Office! when michael came home, he said "i always hoped for it. but not like this" - and it's true. instead of watching the joyful peech, we were watching the sickly peech helplessly, and it was the very opposite of our original happy idea.

i made a follow up appointment with our at-home vet for friday, to check out his weak back legs, to monitor his current state and to help with the litter box situation. our vet gave him an enema on my bathroom floor which he tolerated like a champ. he immediately hobbled over to the litter box (with me carrying his back legs, wheel barreling him), successfully used his litter box (i shouted to my vet through my bedroom window to the parking lot to exclaim the news -- yes, i shouted that my cat had pooped for all the world to hear. and soon after, he seemed to have use of his back legs again, though he seemed utterly exhausted. he would collapse after a few steps, seeming too tired to go any further, though he'd do things like perk up when michael would come home from work and try to run to the front door to greet him as he always did. even on friday he did this.

that whole week, i would describe him as deflated. he didn't purr or meow, he slept a lot, and when he didn't sleep, he just seemed to shift a lot, like he couldn't get comfortable. he saw vets 3 times that week. he was sedated for half the week. we didn't know how much was just his quality of life slipping away and how much was the medication, and the vets didn't know either. again, they all agreed, give it until monday.

we fully expected monday could be his last day with us, a nightmare come true.

on friday night, we were watching a movie with peechee bundled up like a burrito in a towel so he wouldn't try to jump off the couch. at some point he *did* try to jump off the couch. we gently put him on the floor and he walked over to his favorite spot, a lap desk turned upside down that he claimed as his own. i remember looking at him there and thinking "peech is still with us. he's not gone yet. maybe there is hope." even though i felt like earlier in the week i had lost it.

that night, we brought him to bed and i gave him his medications then encouraged him to eat. for the first time ever, in his *entire life*, he refused to eat a bite of food. i pleaded with him and began crying. i had been crying a lot these past few weeks, but i really felt like this was a bad turn. for hours i tried to encourage him to eat. he wouldn't. i left a message with our vet. i pet him and gave him water, i cuddled him and probably even annoyed him a bit. we all lay in bed, i read by flashlight with him in my arms.

around 1:30am i fell asleep. i awoke at 2:30am and he wasn't in the room. i panicked.

i woke michael up and we looked for him around the house. we found him in the far corner under the bed, looking scared. he seemed glad to see michael though. i held up the bed and frame while michael scooped him up into his arms. we pet him through the night. his nose was making a whistling sound. he seemed to be congested and scared, having a hard time breathing. i left another message with our vet. i called the emergency animal hospital. they said to bring him in and they'd put him in oxygen. i knew if we freaked him out and threw him in the car and took him to the ER, he'd die right then and there. the cardiologist, despite our frequent vet visits, consistently warned us that hospitalization / the ER was the worst thing for a cat with a heart condition. this was around 4:30am.

when we pet him, his breathing would become normal again. i measured his heart rate and it was normal. (i had been in the habit of checking it twice a day and had the timer auto-programmed on my phone) so we just pet him, resolving to have the vet come see him at home first thing. i sent the vet a text message. he started wheezing around 5am. we turned on the humidifier. we pet him. we called the ER again. heart still normal, breathing rate still normal. congested? he intermittently slept by our heads on our pillows near the humidifier. around 5:30am i noticed he was facing away from it as he slept, so i tried to reposition him to breathe the humid air and lay him down in front of it. when i lay him down, he yowled a low groan unlike anything i'd ever heard him do before.

michael started yelling at me, "why did you move him!" - i said so he would breathe the air from the humidifier, and peechee yowled again. we were both terrified. i still had my hand under him and felt his heart start to beat very, very fast. michael said "why is he breathing so fast? he's panting!" all i could feel was his heart beating in my hand, impossibly fast and faster and faster.

and then it stopped.

it was all within 10 seconds but it felt like 10 hours.

after he died, his body kept twitching, he heaved dramatic deep breaths which we realize now were last gasps after death. his tail was big, a trait that only happened when he was scared. maybe this happens to all cats in death, i don't know, but it haunted me that in his final moments he could have been so uncomfortable and scared. i second guessed our decision making over and over and over. should we have taken him to the ER? should we have euthanised him? we did the best we could. looking back, it seemed like his body had just shut down completely. from the litter box issues, kidney problems, heart failure, asthma...all his systems were failing. is this what dying of old age is?

the days following were hell. i felt like i was in a waking nightmare. walking around outside, i couldn't see five feet in front of me. the world around me felt surreal and like i wasn't part of it. we took him to the crematorium and i was crying so much i couldn't see what i was even signing. on sunday, we stopped by the farmers market to buy sunflowers, in honor of the day we had planned for saturday (a picnic in our backyard with peechee so he could bask in the sun, which never happened) - i was so grief stricken, michael had to lead me back to the car so i could weep privately. we were both wrecks.

we put flowers around the house in all his favorite spots so at least there would be *something* there when we went to look for him. michael threw away his beds and his litter box and i cried when that happened too. i wasn't ready to throw away his belongings yet. my memories of him are happy, so i wasn't ready to erase his presence from our life. we separated his medications (to donate back to the vet), his toys (to donate to...?) and his food (to donate to an animal shelter) and tried to erase the signs of his sickness in our home, so we could focus on the memories of him in life. we made our bed again, dismantling the sleeping bag hospital room we made for him. every morning, we woke up with tears, missing him. we went through all our photos, including the ones i had of him from when i first got him, as a 17 year old. one of the photos from around then was a close up i took of his sleeping face, blurry and out of focus. we put it next to the bed to wake up to every morning. it's the only thing that would coax us out of our morning grief, the harsh realization every morning that the nightmare was real, and out of bed.

the last few weeks seem like a matter of a few days. i don't know where all the time has gone. i shut down my shop and put up an autoresponder and took some time off work. i want to take more time off work. i just can't pretend to care about anything else right now than this pain i am feeling. the emails i get, the questions on etsy, it's all so trivial and unimportant. while i have tremendous medical bills of peechee's to pay off and we need the financial help, i really feel like i need the time to be quiet and accept the emptiness of our home.

i have cried more than i ever have in my life. i have missed him to the point where my heart physically aches. michael and i've been writing down our happy memories of him - laughing and crying together, and have talked to friends and family as much as possible, and i got sick, and i got a massage where i just ended up crying on the massage table, and i had to pretend to be happy at times when i wasn't just to make it through obligations like standing in line at the post office. i have cried every time i got a note about him. i cried when i read the letter our vet sent us about how special he was, even to her. how one-of-a-kind he was. i cried when i looked through photos. i cried browsing petfinder. i cried getting a package in the mail from a customer with books about pet loss that i then began reading and crying while reading. i cried when i thought about all the parts in my day where he was missing. i cried watching videos i'd taken of him, chasing crickets and grooming himself, mundane events that i'm so glad i captured at some point. i cried seeing strangers out walking their dogs. i have been incredibly envious of pet owners with their pets. they don't realize how lucky they are to still have their companion. to have someone still lovingly looking back at them, waking them up earlier than they're ready for, and to have that unconditional love that only a pet gives. i could sleep all day.

i'm crying writing this post and still, even though i've gone through all the main events in his final days, i don't think i can really properly express how hard it's been. i've gone through loss before, but it's just never been like this before. i just miss him so much and while every day i showered him with love and took the best care of him i could, and appreciated every minute with him that i had, now that he's gone, somehow i appreciate it even more. i realize how calming he was to me in my life. he was the gentlest being i have ever known. i don't think a more perfect pet exists in all the world. i hope someday we have a pet again but i know that it will never live up to peechee, that it isn't possible to. everything about him was something i loved and i miss him so much.

i feel like i lost my best friend and my baby and my companion all in one. i know it's not something many people can relate to and i wouldn't expect anyone to be able to, but every day without him has been hard. especially since i work at home, i'm so used to having him by my side at all times. and it's hard to find the strength to do anything other than the small comforts i have left: reading, being with my husband, my family and close friends, hiking, sleeping. i know in time i'll feel less sad, more able to focus on the happiness he brought me without the suffocating pain of knowing that time has ended.

there's more to say but i've said enough.

i've never experienced grief and sorrow like this.

hey, happy new year!

this year i will be participating in the fifty fifty challenge and invite you to do the same. 50 books, 50 movies. no re-reads or re-views allowed! i'm beginning my year by trying to wrap up all the books i'm in the middle of reading, and the movies are going to have to wait until i finish plowing through the most recent season of Dexter (totally my favorite show) but i'm pretty excited to begin!

as far as a major and minor - for books, i think i'm going to be majoring in the "1001 books to read before you die" list (which, at the pace of 50 books a year would still take you roughly 20 years) and i sort of want to minor in herman melville and/or reading all the books i've bought that are waiting to be read.
for movies, i'm not sure what i'll do yet, except perhaps return to my effort of watching the AFI's top 100

one thing on my mind is that i need to pick some serious page-turner books for my to-read list. right now i'm in the middle of *six* (SIX) really sluggish books (mostly non-fiction, the death trap to my reading pace). i need something engaging, like Hunger Games engaging, to keep my pace up. any suggestions?

sign up for the challenge here: http://www.fiftyfifty.me/2011/12/sign-up-for-5050-challenge.html
send me any suggestions for viewing and/or reading.
and i'll be sharing some of my reads/views soon.


in non-reading/viewing news: my cat peechee had to have fluid siphoned from his lungs again last week at the vet's. he hasn't been doing great since, so we're headed back to the cardiologist and internist today. i officially spend more on peechee than i am able to earn, which is tough, but i just want to do the best for him that i can. i love him so much. he has definitely had his ups, his playful days, his perfect days, and right now he's definitely having his worse days. keep your fingers crossed for him, please. crossed forever.


in non-reading/non-viewing/non-cat news, i love the holidays but i'm kind of glad they're over too. it is tough to work such long days when so much else is going on.

today i thought about how i've lived in san diego for over 6 years now. i love our home here in san diego and i love our neighbors. day to day, life is so fulfilling here, between the sunshine and our little bungalow and the coziness of our neighborhood. i love the friends we have made, and how we're always discovering new corners of our amazing city.

on the other hand, i'm having a really hard time here as an artist.

there is no local store that wholesale orders from me. [i do see my licensed work out and about at times, but alas, i can't afford to live off licensing alone. my online shop / wholesale orders provides me with stability in between illustration gigs, art shows and licensing]

about 2% of my holiday orders were purchased by people local to me, around the same number of people purchased my work from ann arbor, michigan.

a few weeks ago, a customer threatened to sue me for having a credit card minimum at a craft show i did in town. at that craft show, *one* person i know came by to see me.

i rented a desk at a shared studio space for about a year, ending this past july. when i started there, i was one of 3 visual people out of about 60 who rented there. the person who worked next to me sold insurance. another loudly talked on the phone about surfboard racks throughout the day. i was the only person who didn't work with a computer. i frequently came and went without anyone saying hello to me. months after leaving the space, i continued to get emails from management, who apparently never noticed i left.

an art show just happened this past weekend with dozens of local artists, and i just heard about it. after it happened. i know the organizers. they run an art organization whose mission is to promote local artists. feeling pretty left out on that one.

i didn't make it into a single local gift guide, and did not hear back when i contacted 3 local stores and two media outlets about working together as a local artist.

when i signed up for an artist grant application seminar the day it was announced, i was told it was already booked (in just a few hrs!) and "sorry" - i was told the same thing regarding a craft show last year, before the application period had closed.

there are three local art supply shops, none of which sell titanium white gouache [really, a staple], one of which doesn't even sell paintbrushes.

several months back, i met with the only local gallery that exhibits artwork along the lines of what i make, and they didn't want to book a show with me but suggested i bring by some "cheap paintings that would sell" to display in their window. [paraphrasing]
the next time i ran into the curator and said hello, he didn't remember me or he pretended he didn't know me.

i was hired once - one time - as an illustrator for a san diego publication three years ago. i have contacted them [and others] several times since and haven't heard back.

as i mention the things above, i think to myself: it is POSSIBLE that i am just the world's most annoying person. maybe all these things happen because i'm unbearable and that's why no one wants to work with me or acknowledge me as a local artist. this is possible. or maybe my work sucks, and is totally unappealing to all of the above.

it is also possible that i am extremely forgettable.

but also, as a reference point for all of the above, i am VERY shy about talking about my work or promoting myself outside my facebook or email list, where people are already there to hear about my work. so, it is a big, scary risk to me to contact local shops, local media, etc to be like "hey, here i am! i'm local! i make stuff! let me be part of your community!" and to be ignored or let down or just to feel like i don't belong is pretty harrowing / discouraging.

it could be me or it could be san diego. either way, it is hard.

it's almost the opposite experience from providence, where i lived for nearly 8 years previously. in providence, i felt like on a social level, people were just downright mean. it was physically impossible to go anywhere without running into a thousand people who would either pretend they didn't know you even if they did, or people that you would just NOT want to see and running into them created an instantly awkward encounter. socially, people were just awful to each other. i have so many examples but better to summarize: it's a city of everybody shit talking everybody else for no reason at all.

providence is a city of straight faced head nods instead of smiling hellos.

it was a very lonely place to live and i was happy to go when we moved. but, the art opportunities were ABUNDANT. the art supply shops i could spend hours in. off the top of my head, i'm thinking of four very big ones, but i'm sure there were even more.

by the way, san diego is four times the size of the entire state of rhode island.

in providence, if i wanted to throw together an art show, there were plenty of spaces willing to give it a shot with me. local stores did carry my work. i was hired (and continue to be hired) as an artist for local publications there like providence monthly and rhode island monthly. i feel like i was offered constant opportunities and felt like part of a community as a local artist, even though i was unhappy [socially, personally] while there.

i would never want to go back to living in providence, it really was awful and there is a meanness in the community that i could never get used to, but i'm just noticing the reversal that happened. since my work is my life and my life is my work, it kind of sucks that they can't both just harmonize in the city i live in.

i wonder when [if ever] i will feel like a san diego artist rather than an artist living in an art-unfriendly city which happens to be san diego.

i can't believe it's been a month since everything happened with peechee. it feels as if it's been just a matter of a couple days. when i brought him home from the ER with all the instructions i was given, i made a hospital chart to track his progress (weight, breaths per minute, AM/PM medications, quality of life, etc)

i didn't know how much longer he would have with us, so i only made it for two weeks out.

we're now deep onto our second page, which brings me a kind of bittersweet happiness i can't even describe. i feel like a crazy person for being so affected by his wellness, but i also know from notes and calls i've received that among animal lovers, i'm not alone -- which gives me some comfort when i do stupid, uncontrollable things like cry about peechee in the front of my husband's bosses at his first ever holiday party with a new company. ("get a grip, susie" has been my unsuccessful, stern self-talking in these situations)

that said, an update from our most recent (8th) vet visit is in order. first things first: peechee looks great. he has been eating, and he's been playful and he is acting like the cat i knew before this all happened. it *appears* that the vetmedin (experimental drug / potential miracle drug) the cardiologist prescribed is working to help manage his heart failure. his lungs are clear of fluids (!!!), and he seems to be himself in every way! it's a kind of great news we never thought we'd hear again.

that said, he is still at risk for heart failure again, a stroke, and his kidneys are also responding negatively to medication and at very, very high risk for failure. every time we leave the cardiologists office, she gives us contact information for an emergency, which i feel like is her way of preparing us, saying you will need this info someday. so as great as he looks, there is so much i have to be vigilant about (medications at specific times in the day, monitoring his appetite and thirst...) i feel like i'm constantly on edge about it and wonder when *i* will get used to the routine. (perhaps this is the hardest part. the fact that he looks fine now, but is actually not yet.) at times i am honestly anxious about leaving the house, dreading the possibilities if something were to happen.

not that i even could leave the house, even if i wanted to. i've never been so grateful to be so busy with holiday orders. each shop order i've gotten has put a penny toward his (expensive) treatments and given me the peace of mind that we'll be able to take care of him going forward. i cannot begin to express my gratitude to those who shopped handmade / independent with someone like me this holiday. i know i'm not the only person out there depending on this time of year for some stability in my crazy life.

anyway, so that's the gist of things. we're not out of the woods yet, but peechee has resumed his usual behavior of following me around from room to room while i work, and i work all the time.

here he is, swaddled absurdly by me at his most recent vet visit (yet somehow he remains content):

thank you to everyone who left me a sweet message on the peechee post, or anyone who emailed me or followed up in some way, especially those of you who understood what it's like to go through this with a soulpet.

it's been tough over here: 6 vet visits and the 3 day ER stay during the last couple weeks. he hates going and we hate taking him out of the house. the good news is he's not suffering - he is being affection and sweet as always. that said, it seems like every time we take him to the vet, the news is worse than it was before. so i don't know where we stand now. his kidneys are reacting poorly to the medication that's supposed to clear the fluid from his lungs. his right atrium of his heart is swelled to 3x what it is supposed to be size-wise, so he is now also at risk for a stroke. we have him on four medications including an experimental medication that we are praying pulls a miracle. it is supposedly a miracle drug. (vetmedin if there are any vets out there) i am so exhausted from crying all the time.

it's that busy time of year for me with the shop, and given the vet bills, i've never been more grateful to be slammed with work and have some influx of cash to pay for all his treatments. i've also been fortunate enough to have my art & the products i design featured in a couple cool places recently like ecofabulous, poppytalk, vegansaurus, cool mom picks, discover paper - and all that great news has really given me some much needed good news amidst all this bad news.

meanwhile, peech has been seeping in to tons of my artwork under various pseudonyms. here are post it notes for the giant robot post it show next saturday in LA, and some paintings for a holiday art show here in san diego at junc gallery tomorrow. here is also a picture of peechee with a handmade donut toy from hey kitty kitty -- megan from hey kitty kitty is one of the shops i work with and sent me a package of toys for peechee with a note that said "stay strong, peechee!" which predictably basically brought me to tears. it was one of the most thoughtful things imaginable, and i can't tell you how happy it made us both to see him interacting with a new toy, giving us positive memories of him during this difficult time.

please cross your fingers for our little guy & hope monday finally brings some good news with the miracle drug. hope you all had a good thanksgiving week & holidays and all that stuff. i'll keep posting updates. xo

i've been scrolling through my archives here on lj and have been shocked to see how little i've posted about peechee. shocking because anyone who knows me knows he's basically all i talk about and is the absolute center of my world. you can probably pick up on this due to the extremely high incidence of orange cats in my artwork. he's the rather plump ginger cat i've had since i was 17, in high school, back when i was hating everything about my life except his furry role in it.

i met him at a no-kill shelter called Orphans of the Storm outside chicago, which i still donate to strictly because that's where peechee came from & i'm forever grateful to have him in my life. he was cat #169, a stray estimated to be about 2 years old- though looking back, i think he may have been only a kitten. i named peechee after a band i loved at the time called the peechees but it's incidentally the word for cat in farsi as well. seems like every persian family has a cat named peechee. peechee lived with my parents in chicago and later california while i lived in RI and was in college, but i visited him and my family for months at a time. he moved back in with me when i moved to san diego and aside from some relatively minor medical stuff (asthma, mast cell tumors), it's been mostly happy, amazing times ever since.

my phone is evidence of this. it is 90% full of photos of him. he used to be a non-wandering outdoor cat, stepping outside only to wander 10 feet away and take a nap. he's never been a hunter. back in chicago, there was a spot under a pine tree in our backyard where he loved to nap on a bed of pine needles in the shade, hidden and quiet. in california, when he lived with my parents, they said after he moved in with me, strange cats started coming around, presumably missing him and looking for him. he became indoor only when he moved in with me as i since learned that if you love your cat, it's much much safer to keep him indoors - statistically, he'll live much longer - even if all he ever did outside was nap. he's been pretty okay with being indoor only ever since though he has the occasional moment where he sneaks outside to eat grass and barf it up.

he is truly the sweetest cat on the planet.

everyone says this about their pets, but peechee is exceptional - anyone who met him would agree. he greets us at the door whenever we come home, follows me around from room to room. lays his head on my lap when i work. purrs sometimes just if you look at him, he's just happy to have the affection. he doesn't hide. doesn't chase the finches. doesn't do much but snuggle, eat and sleep. doesn't scratch us, doesn't jump onto ANY surface unless he is invited up by someone. he is incredibly affectionate, a total cuddler, and i have never met another cat like him. we frequently refer to him as a "gateway cat" as he has convinced many cat-haters, animal avoiders, non-animal lovers, etc. to come on board. he wins you over completely. that's what he did to me the day i saw him at the shelter, cowered in the corner, being bullied by other cats. i shooed the bully cats away and he walked into my lap and fell asleep and it was love. i wasn't even planning to adopt (then or ever) due to allergies, but how could i not after meeting him.

i remember lying in bed awake at night, after i met him, in fear that someone else would have the opportunity to adopt him before i could convince my parents to let me bring him home. i think it was a span of two weeks before they finally agreed. when i brought him home, he was incredibly sick. one day he barfed up live, writhing worms. i rushed him to the ER, driven by my friend paula, while my parents were still at work. he had eye and ear infections, and he was scrawny. i nursed him to health, taking care to give him all his meds - the kind of thing that has forever made my family tell me that i missed my calling as a vet (which honestly, especially after our recent experiences, i feel is a high compliment. vets are amazing, courageous, heroes and i honestly don't know how they do it emotionally.)


peechee experienced heart failure this week, possibly while we were in rhode island for 3 days for a wedding.

we came home and we didn't know that's what was wrong with him, he was breathing a little weirdly - sort of heaving, but not audibly or anything. he had been coping with asthma for about a year, which we have thankfully been controlling without medications but rather with a restricted diet and air filters. i say thankfully, because had we given him asthma medication, surely he'd be dead at this moment. when we came home and noticed his breathing had progressed to labored, we thought "maybe it's time to finally start meds, our natural way is no longer working". we called our fabulous mobile vet (as the only thing that upsets peechee is a ride in the car) and she came by and said "i really think you should take him to the ER, this may not be asthma and i think this could be an emergency". we rushed him over, and he was immediately placed in an oxygen tank, given x-rays, and after the x-rays were revealed, we were told the bleak possibility that his lungs were 80% obstructed by a tumor and he probably would never come home with us again, to seriously consider euthanasia.

i lost it completely. michael and i both lost it completely. it was the last thing in the world we expected to hear. we kept him in the hospital, in oxygen, with an IV overnight and decided to opt for more testing in the morning to determine that that was in fact the case, and if it was, to consider keeping him on prednisone for a potentially short prolongation of his life. they shaved his belly and did an ultrasound and revealed that it wasn't a tumor and it wasn't asthma either (though asthma is present) but it was heart failure and it's bad and his lungs were filled with fluid. they told us he turned purple during the x-ray process. he stayed in the hospital for two days, endured constant testing, xrays, ultrasounds, consultations, etc so we could get all the info we could on his condition. i have never cried so much in my life. i'm crying as i write this. in bed, trying to sleep (not that i could, and i haven't really since this happened) michael said "i'd give anything for just one more day with him" and all the memories inside our home: the memories of him lying warm next to me as i sleep, the smell of his head when i kiss it, and his soft purrs when i'm not even petting him, just tortured me. i couldn't believe i might never have him in my life again. just minutes before we took him to the ER, he was eating, playful, peaceful. having trouble breathing, but behaviorally the same. how could this be the same cat we're being told is on his death bed? they told us cats hide their illnesses well but it seems unimaginable. he has always been so easy to read.

our priority has been stabilizing his health, stabilizing his breathing, and bringing him home as soon as possible, even if it's just to put him to sleep. they tapped 100mL of fluid from his lungs and his breathing improved tremendously. there is still a lot of fluid in his lungs. he was able to breathe outside the oxygen tank. we were able to bring him home yesterday morning, which feels like a miracle after we were told he might never come home with us again. i cried when he came in the door and lay down. he's not himself yet but it's to be expected after all he's gone through. he's on lots of medication. some of it could trigger kidney failure. the vet has told us the prognosis for a cat who experienced this type of heart failure is usually 3 months to live. possibly longer (a nurse at the ER said she had a cat who survived a year after heart failure), but possibly any day now. it's weird to be celebrating another possible 3 months with him, but compared to dying in an oxygen tank in the ER the night we brought him, it seems like a tremendous victory.

still, my heart is so heavy. i can't imagine ever letting him go. i will never be ready. we're praying he'll be one of those cats that surprise the vet with his longevity. i got a message from a friend and neighbor who watches peechee for us every time we go out of town and knows he's been in the hospital, and he said "don't worry, peechee's a fighter"

let's hope so. i need him to be.

he'll never recover from his heart failure, so it's difficult talking about this with anyone because it's not a "get well soon" scenario. but it is a "keep fighting the good fight" scenario, and i'm going to shower him with my love and we'll do everything we can to keep him as healthy as possible for as long as possible. i'm sure i'll update more about this in the future, but just needed to write something about it, to vent some of this incredible pain i'm feeling. my heart is so heavy and i can't stop crying.

i wonder if he'll have enough time with us for his belly fur to grow back. he has a white patch on his belly, and it's his softest part.

i'm so grateful to have another day with him, and for the life i've had with him so far.
i'll never be ready to let him go.

he is one of a kind, the most wonderful pet companion i could have, and every day with him is and has been a gift.